Spendings of this year - without closing a booking year

[Mike or Penny Novack]

Gast1234 wrote:

>Thank you! Although my English isn't perfekt I was understood.
>
>BUT: If I do like Keith Bellairs suggest, most of the coluns are correct,
>but in "Cash", "savings" only the money of this year is shown. That means,
>although I could have 300€ on my bank account, for this year -100€ could be
>listed.
>
>I think there is no other way then closing books.
>  
>
I'm not so sure I am understanding what you want or expect.

The USUAL way to report on an accounting period is to produce:

1) a "balance sheet" for the start of the period.
    That shows the balances of all of the "standing accounts" at the 
start (things like "cash", "savings", "liabilities", etc.)

2) a "balance sheet" for the end of the period.
    That shows the balances of all of the "standing accounts" at the end 
(things like "cash", "savings", "liabilities", etc.)

3) a "Profit and Loss" for the interval of the accounting period (aka 
"Income Statement" aka "Statement of Revenues" -- what normally called 
depends on the type of entity for which the books are being kept --- 
gnucash calls this "Income Statement" but you can change the title when 
you run the report)
     That shows all the "income" and "expense" accounts, the comings in 
and the goings out that were NOT just changes to assets or liabilities. 
For example, you might "spend" to pay off a loan but that was NOT an 
expense transaction even though a "spending". The report also shows the 
net difference between income and expense.

     In the old days (pen and ink on paper) this report was created as a 
temporary account in the process of "closing the books" (and then this 
account closed to equity by the net profit or loss). You HAD to close 
the books to produce this report, at least a "trial closing". But a 
computerized accounting like gnucash system can produce this report at 
any time without closing the books.

On the other hand, if what you need to see is all comings and goings 
then you want the "cash flow" report. That can be important to determine 
if you have an immediate cash problem but isn't the same thing. You 
might be fine as far as cash flow is concerned but bleeding away equity 
by covering expenses with an increase in liabilities. Or the other way 
around, you might be fine with income more than expenses but running of 
immediately available cash because too much of income went to paying off 
liabilities (or too much spent in acquiring more fixed assets).

Michael D Novack